FIXATIONS OF A FRESH GRAD

Tell me something more about yourself that's not included in your resume. If you're currently part of the white-collared army or at least have been part of it, don't tell me you were never asked that question. We know it would be asked; but still, we get all flustered, stammer, and all we can say is maybe something canned, something probably already written down your CV. That's because either you were so eager to decorate that CV that you wrote everything down to the last detail of your telenovela-worthy life story, or you're simply living in a world where everything is about your job.

I never applied too much pressure on my life until I was a fresh grad. I felt like I had to get the best first job that would hopefully be my last. I felt like I always had to prove myself to other people, and to myself more than anybody else. Four years have gone by and I eventually moved to a different company. Now I'm seeing how I was four years ago with my younger sister, who's now taking on all the pressures of a fresh grad like air that can't get out from a bottle of hairspray. The sight's pretty painful. But no matter how much I tell her that her first job's does not equally going to determine who or what she's going to be, I know she'll never comprehend unless she gets her feet on the water. And I can only be here to lend her some good old recycled sanity anytime she needs one.

We humans always want to learn things the hard way. But realistically speaking, sometimes there's just no other way to learn than to feel them in our own, hard ways. Experiences are what make us stronger; it's what makes us 'human.' For me four years have been pretty long and I sometimes feel really old. But I can say it was long enough to identify a part of myself that will separate my job from who and what I am. My job is part of who I am. But I am not my job.

Whenever I look at my CV I still feel like a fresh grad, with all those fear of the unknown and the excitement of what I may write next. But when I'm asked, "tell me something more about yourself that's not included in your resume," I now understand it's actually a happy question that you can ask yourself every now and then. It's an opportunity to discuss something more out of what is being dictated to us by the stereotypes of being in the working class. And that's actually the whole point in all these asking, because your resume is obviously a mere understatement. #